So, recently I decided to give into Goodreads. I’ve had an account for a year or two, I just never used it much. The basic daily navigation tools are ok, but for stuff like adding reviews, or finding out you have to rate or review 20 books before you get recommendations you have to dig. This may or may not have been explained when I signed up, but well, I no longer remember. Those following me on twitter @Onyxhawke will note I reviewed a bunch of books in the last 24 hours or so to get to 20.

When I first get their recommendations top it looked like this:

Top of the page (minus the navigation bar)

Scrolling down they put fantasy next:

the fantasy pics

And at the bottom:

last row of rec page

I decided to click on the fantasy category which looks like this:

The top of the Fantasy rec page.Nine rows total

A quick trip through the 45 recommendations showed me a couple interesting things:

No one I’d reviewed showed up.

16 of the authors were people I’d read something by.

most of actually was fantasy despite the first screen showing a space opera.

No real leaning towards an particular publisher, decade, or subgenre.

Many of the books were a decade or two old, and most seemed to be the start of a series not a middle book.

More to come, I’ll also be taking a look at two other networks in the near future Diaspora and Socl.

Susan Curnow

Interesting, isn’t it? Out of all the recs I might have picked a couple even given the little book that they compared it to. No, none of my reviewed ones showed, only in secondary rec’s.

Onyxhawke

It is neat. I think some of the sight layout is a bit odd, but hey I didn’t build it. Group moderators have a lot of power…